


The Shadow and The Soul

by Catheryne



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23895484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catheryne/pseuds/Catheryne
Summary: A story about second chances in love and life.
Relationships: Carter Baizen/Blair Waldorf
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Fair warning that this is not a Chuck and Blair piece, and to leave now if you cannot live with that because there is absolutely less than zero chance for this to end Chair as will be apparent immediately. I am also working full time and will not be able to update daily as in my older fics.

Part 1

She had no time to be fascinated by the way that the condensation clung to the outside of the crystal, but still her eyes were caught, as if she was watching an accident unfold before her as one by one the droplets sought each other, magnetized unabashedly, molding into larger and larger ones until the weight of their togetherness grew too heavy and down they crawled—fell down the smooth surface in spite of all their will to remain.

Blair reached for the glass, needing to wet her throat lest she choke—or tear her insides from the scream of fury that she tamped down.

She had all the reason to believe that even if she finally broke and let it free—the scream would be a silent one. No one else would hear. Except her. Every fiber of her that thrummed. Every bit of her.

Many women in her place would face the world behind a black veil, the son and heir to an empire in tow, and stand in the front pew of the memorial and allow those that had known him to drone on and on about the greatness of a man who turned his own name into a title—a designation—a sound as if it was more than a set of letter to denote him.

But she had believed him, lulled herself into the life she had made with him.

Were she another person, she would have gotten at least a modicum of privacy. But she was not an ordinary person. She never was in high school, a queen among common heiresses. She certainly was not in the last few years, after building a name of her own and a company to proud of.

Not now, not in the future. Definitely not as the widow of a billionaire whose face was plastered on the covers of magazines and whose death was retweeted twenty eight million times in the last twenty four hours. Not when her discovery would soon be a global event. Not when his betrayal would put the news cycle on steroids.

She took a sip, and even the cool liquid was painful to swallow. Apparently the throat could be raw untouched. Blair could feel the eyes of those looking at her. They were the same set of eyes that always came to her in these times of need. In their lives, it was the same people that came and stayed with her in her refuge away from the world. All the same people except one.

Who was gone. Who she loved to the point it ruined her, and who loved her until to the time she rebuilt herself. Loved, but not really. But he did, yet he did all the things that meant he did not.

Did he?

"Blair, what do you want to do?" asked Serena, standing at the window, a silhouette of an angel drenched in the golden sun, so completely incongruent to what was real.

And she fiercely wanted Chuck to tell her, but he was dead. He was dead and he left her holding the bag. He could have handled this. He handled the mess of the world when she needed the time to build up her company, to focus on Henry, to tend to their marriage. She fiercely wanted him alive now to handle this, and to tell him to go to hell.

And Nate, dear precious Nate, took the wheel in a way he did not use to in their time together, honed so well by the path he had taken. "You need to put out a statement. You want privacy, would appreciate their respect and to let you and Henry take time to grieve."

Henry.

Henry who idolized his father. Henry who thought Chuck was a superhero. Henry, who was her forever, and a forever that she could not grieve to. Not truly. As devastating as Chuck's betrayal was, Blair would have to spend forever giving her son the image he would treasure.

"I'm not grieving," she finally responded, managing a firmness in her voice that her heart certainly did not have. "Why would I grieve?" she meant it rhetorically, but it sounded like a question, even to herself.

"You don't," Serena offered. "We don't grieve for liars. We don't grieve for adulterers."

She closed her eyes. Blair heard the break in her best friend's voice. Her heart splintered along with it, taking her back to the fragment of memory just two days before, listening to sweet nothings in her ear, from a husband so enamored of her they had spent the last half hour before his trip cuddled in the back of the black limo. He had taken her hand and peppered kisses into her palm.

For much of her life she loved him so uncontrollably, so unbelievably. And she had believed he loved her. He did. Truly.

Did he?

They were inevitable, he had told her.

She should have known, a love so large and unwieldy was inevitably doomed.

And a personality like her husband, the love she had so fiercely believed in, could just as easily be reduced to Serena's words.

Could he?

She cursed herself for her indecision. He did not love her? How could he have, yet done this? But every word, every memory, every bit of those days together told her he did.

And now every piece of information that drifted to her ultimately told her about a man she truly could not have known.

And then there was a warm arm over her shoulders, and like so many years ago it was easy to retreat and become a young woman again, barely out of her teens, and melt into Nate. He handed her a clean handkerchief. The silhouette moved and then Serena settled into the seat on her other side, and like before she was ensconced by two of the people who knew her the most. She left Serena's lips on her temple, and heard her best friend whisper, "We aren't grieving for him."

And wrapped in their embrace, finally shedding tears as she played back memories of her marriage, his words, the time he spent with Henry, Blair realised.

They were grieving. They were grieving for her. They were grieving for the life she lost.

"Kill it," she whispered.

"What?"

She pulled herself up to sit and faced Nate. With her free hand she clutched at Serena's. "I don't care what you need to do, how much you need to pay her family. Throw as much as you think it will take at them. Kill it. Kill the story, Nate."

"Lie," Nate stated starkly.

She had a son, the heir to everything that Chuck had built. She had Henry who still, at five, was brokenhearted and could not possibly have another burden to his already shattered soul.

"What's one more lie to cap off a marriage built of them?" she returned.

She would be a grieving widow to the world, a woman whose world was swept from underneath her, a woman who lost the love of her life. Blair stood, unsteadily at first, until she found her footing and made her way to the dresser. She shoved away the black and white photographs scattered on top of the veil, unable to ignore the images so sharply focused.

His death would transform her entire future.

Those photos changed her past.

"Kill the story, Nate. This is between me and him. It belongs in the grave."

She held the black veil together and when she turned, Serena held out her black pillbox hat for her. "Now let's bury that son of a bitch," Serena said softly, for her, without malice, the words in desperate endearment.

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2

For Carter Baizen, New York City was a shadow that followed him every place in the world. His past was in New York, and the sins of his younger self remained there. Schemed for money he did not need, swindled for mementos he never intended to keep, slept with women languishing in the bottom of their luck.

Tried to be better, just for a while, only to have the shadows converge and chase him out.

How he wished he could outrun them. For a while, he found himself coming back over and over, tempted by pleasures of his youth. It was not until his heart was broken that he decided to evade those memories.

This city was heaven and hell. It drove him out when he wanted to stay; pulled him in with her talons just at that point when far away from her he began to thrive.

Had he a choice now, he would not have darkened the city again.

Life had only just begun to make sense. Out there where people did not recognize his name, the life he lived made a difference. Who knew that the choices he made as a younger man—all choices that this high society frowned upon—would be just the foundation for his career. 

The Mediterranean Graveyard was born on the dawn of a summer, when Carter had come down from an all night of drinking and carousing in one of his favorite resort inns in Italy, and found himself waking up by the sea amidst the chaos. The first thing he recognized was the warm water drenching his clothes, and the gritty sand and rock that abraded his cheek. And then when he opened his eyes, the salt water stung. He shook the daze, and pushed up with arms that had weakened from a life lived far from well. Alcohol and sloth had turned muscles to mush.

He could barely make sense of his surroundings, but heard the curses hurled at the wind, made out the muttered curses as they crashed with the waves. And bodies. Carter saw the bodies. There were four washed ashore, face down, children as young as two—babies. When he turned back to the sea, an entire volume of his life slammed closed before him.

And the entire rest of his life opened to his vast as the sea that lay before him. Far from shore, a minute thing out there in the deep, was the overturned boat. Carter saw the frantic survivors wade among the corpses of the other passengers. 

There was a boy—later he would be told he was ten, the same age as he was when he first crowded in a St Jude’s locker room and snuck a peek at naked boobs that a classmate brought to school—trying to make his way to the island. At the sight, Carter went running down the shoreline, chucking his shoes and shrugging out of his drenched shirt. He recognized the screaming woman waving at him. It was the owner of the inn. Into the crystal waters, he leapt, furious at himself for not having kept up with the swimming practice after leaving school. The boy was just there, several yards away, fighting his way to land.

He never made it.

Useless.

That day, when eighty four souls were lost on that migrant boat, Carter had been useless. His life futile. He had been placed in the world right at the time and place where he could have made a difference, and he did not matter.

And so he turned to the small knowledge that he had in filming documentaries, used the connections he had built in the region. He knew many people, had knowledge of what was possible when you operated under the table, beyond the limits of the law. Carter was known enough by those on the edges of society that the next thing he knew he was on an inflatable motorboat on the Mediterranean Sea, tracking the path of migrant vessels, learning the predictability of the coast guard patrol schedules.

Handing a thick wad of cash, ‘investing’ in the business, on a trip to cross over the murky waters, establishing a line of communication with profiteers.

The Mediterranean Graveyard put him on the map, established his credibility as a journalist and an activist, brought down twenty eight men who thought cramming migrants into overcapacity, below code boats, pushing them across the sea and crossing their fingers that the boat would make its way back was good business. Finally, he mattered. Finally, he was legitimate.

And the family that had long tried to forget him was willing to say his name.

They had asked him many times to return, to spend the holidays, to reconnect. Every time, Carter did not regret his refusal. The Upper East Side seemed too small now, its beauty on the surface too fragile for the roughness that he gained. How was he going to stand and fawn over socialites, champagne in hand, when he knew the earrings on one could pay for a school, or water wells, or windmills, out there in the real world? 

He made his way down the familiar clean paved streets until he turned the corner. When he went on assignment in Bangalore, the small businesses and carts were lively and surprising. Now the streets of his childhood looked so indistinct, with the same clean lines, the standard tan and white and occasional marble columns. He dug his hands deep into the pockets of his coat, fighting off the chill. God, he missed the sweltering heat of Bangalore. He looked up at the high rise and squinted at the glare of the sun. 

If he could be anywhere but here.

Carter entered the building and handed his ID at the lobby desk, and the receptionist registered her surprise. After all, he had not been home for a decade. When she handed his ID back to him, she gave him a badge access card. Carter took it with him and entered through the turnstiles towards the elevator, tapping the card on his palm. Far too long, he had sand between his toes—in the beach, in the desert. It was so odd to enter a home as if you were entering some Level 4 lab in the middle of nowhere.

Inside the elevator, the piped in music was cheerful. Belatedly, as if the chill was not enough reminder, he realized that it just happened to be the holidays. He pressed the penthouse button, and then walked towards the back of the elevator, rested his back on the cool reflective metal and leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Brief memories flitted in his mind. He shook them away like they were flies. He had come with a purpose, and then he was gone. There was no use living in the past, hearing the disappointing sighs, the curt voice filled with shame and anger, remembering the way his mother had silently wiped her tears away as he made his walk to these same elevators.

Memories that bit him in the night, clawed at him in his solitude, no matter where in the world was Carter Baizen.

He opened his eyes and looked at the floor number, just in time as the doors opened. His mother, her hands clasped before her, waited there for him. His lips curved, a small smile for comfort. And then she reached out with those same hands that had not touched him for far more years than his decade of absence. But still Carter stepped out of the elevator and took those hands in his, and allowed himself to be pulled into her embrace.

Carter turned to the two men that sat at the table. They stood and murmured their greetings. His mother took a seat and offered him the chair beside hers. Instead, Carter nodded towards the folder that sat at the center of the table.

“Is that it?” At the confirmation, he took the folder and opened it, then read through the statement closely. His throat worked, fighting off the pain as he swallowed. Again. But his throat felt so dry. He heaved a deep breath, then tossed the papers back on the table. He walked over to where he knew the bar was and poured himself some scotch, gulped once and placed the glass back down. The lawyer hurriedly tucked the papers back in his briefcase. To his mother, Carter turned. “I want to see him.”

“Of course,” she told him, her voice soft and gentle, just like before. As softly and gently and weakly as all his life, when she could not stand up for him.

Again, roughly, he shove the thought aside. 

He knew that he was not in the master’s bedroom. His mother could not live through that. Carter made his way to the guestroom and pushed the door open. 

There he was, set up on the hospital bed that took the place of the guest bed. The sun filtered delicately in here through the window. His slippers were laid perfectly organized at the foot of the bed, clean, unused. He settled on the chair facing his father. His eyes danced across the machines surrounding this once towering man. 

He wondered if his old man had once seen his documentaries over these last years. Maybe once, his father would have thought that Carter still had hope. Maybe once he was proud.

He certainly did not say so—never picked up the phone, never sent an email.

But neither did Carter, and it was the stubborn pride that led them here.

Carter did not know for how long he sat on that chair, staring at the blank wall. All he knew was that the sunlight filtering through had gone and in its place was dull, gentle moonlight. Finally, he pulled himself up. His body was so heavy. It was not exhaustion, not pain. But that document his father had left had stated it clearly. Even in death, the old man needed to know, needed to burden him with one final duty.

His mother had refused to take part. Carter waited at the head of the bed as the pastor prayed over his father. And then he reached up at the switch and flipped. The humming stopped. The whirring slowed, then died. Carter took his father’s hand in his and clasped tight over his stomach. Slowly the rising and falling slowed as well. 

Eventually, it stopped.

Carter found his mother sitting at the edge of her bed, small. She looked up at him with glassy eyes. “Is he gone?” she asked. 

Carter nodded. His father was gone, but he had been gone far longer than today. It was just today that they let him go. But he could not tell his mother that. Not when she was so distraught.

“I’m alone now,” she said quietly.

And he cursed himself, kicked himself for this. Over and over. Because this was cracking open the volume of his life that he had slammed shut and dumped into the ocean.

“Not alone, mom.” She looked up at him, with fervent hope. “I’ll stay for a few days.”

tbc


End file.
